


What's In A Name?

by lyricwritesprose



Series: Warlock Dowling's Not Entirely Normal Life [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ineffable Husbands is still not the focus, M/M, Mister Hisster the snake plant is now a character and that's just how it's going to be, but it is an established relationship at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 00:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20330881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose
Summary: When you're a rich kid at a private boarding school, what do you do?  You get together in someone's dorm room on a Friday night.  You get some illicit alcohol and you do something stupid for a lark, like trying to summon a demon.Warlock Dowling is a rich kid at a private boarding school.You see where this is going.





	What's In A Name?

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Что в имени? (What's In A Name?)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25031776) by [Gewi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gewi/pseuds/Gewi)

> I started this work before I read "A Nanny? In MY Summoning Circle?" by pukner, and finished it after. As such, it occupies a weird liminal space between "inspired by" and "not inspired by." Either way, you should go read that one too. It's here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19802275/chapters/46884316

“You realize that just because my  _ name _ is Warlock, that doesn’t mean I  _ am _ a warlock, right?” Warlock asked Brandon. It was the second time he had asked the question since Brandon started to draw the chalk diagram.

“I mean, I think it’s got to be, like, an omen or something,” Brandon said, before putting his tongue between his teeth and concentrating on a particularly curly sigil. “How’d you get a name like that, anyway?”

Warlock sighed. “A nun suggested it.”

Brandon twisted around to look at him. “A nun?”

“I was born in a creepy little convent run by a religious order that, as far as I’ve ever been able to find out, never officially existed. But that doesn’t actually  _ mean _ anything.” Warlock took another swig of illicit beer. He didn’t actually like the taste that much. “I’m completely normal.”

“Except,” Evan pointed out, “that your favorite song is ‘Red Right Hand’ and you own a plant called Mister Hisster.”

Warlock sighed again. “Suck a dick, Evan.” Evan was his roommate. As far as Warlock could tell, this was the correct way to communicate with roommates.

“That’s what he says to the plant,” Evan told the room at large. “‘Suck a dick, Mister Hisster, you don’t even look like a real snake.’ All the time, swearing at a plant.”

“The plant came with instructions, okay?” Warlock said. He probably shouldn’t have admitted that. The beer was making his tongue a little bit loose. “And it  _ doesn’t _ look like a snake. It looks like a bunch of stripy swords. If you’re going to call something a snake plant . . .”

“What did the instructions say?” Matt asked, looking both curious and nervous. Matt was the only one who wasn’t drinking, and the only one who had expressed any doubts about Brandon’s occult project.

Warlock nearly blurted it out, but he wasn’t quite  _ that _ drunk. “Buncha stuff about nitrogen and fertilizer and shit.” And after that, a note:  _ it will grow better if you terrorize it. _ Warlock’s ability to terrorize anything was limited to wearing black clothing and questionable jewelry, but the plant was one of the Weird Birthday Presents and those mattered to him—more than the stuff his parents bought him, sometimes—so he dutifully called the plant a cocksucker and a fucktrumpet and the plant dutifully grew for him, as if it knew he was trying.

“Okay,” Brandon said. “I think I’ve got it.” And then, apparently feeling that that didn’t sound cool enough, “The circle is closed. Light the candles.”

Warlock looked around. “Where are the candles?”

“Under the beer.” Brandon pointed to the corner of the dorm suite. “Oh, and there should be a lighter in there.”

“I’m not sure we should be doing this,” Matt said.

Warlock wanted to impress Matt. He was uncomfortable with the reasons  _ why _ he wanted to impress Matt, which involved Matt’s striking blue eyes and a sort of flutter in his stomach when he talked to the other boy, which he didn’t feel safe about interrogating too closely. It occurred to him now that if they  _ did _ try to summon a demon, Matt would be impressed by how cool and badass he was. “I’ll get the candles,” he decided, and did. “Hey, Brandon, why’d you get number-shaped birthday candles?”

“It’s what I found. But I tried for, like, numbers of occult significance. Three sixes and one three because they were out of sixes.”

Warlock shrugged and brought them back to the chalk circle.

“I really don’t think we should be doing this,” Matt said.

“Now, we all have to stand on the cardinal points,” Brandon said. He frowned at the diagram. “I think the circle’s big enough. It has to be enough for something to materialize in.”

“How big  _ is _ a demon, though?” Evan wondered. “What if it’s too big for the circle? Would it get squashed? Sort of . . .” He mashed his face sideways with his hand, apparently trying to imitate the effect of a person pushing their face on a glass surface. “Blrearrghmmgr, like that.”

“Maybe it would break out,” Matt jittered.

“It’s ectoplasmic,” Brandon said. “It can fit into any space it likes, it just needs to have room for, like, a form that we’re comfortable with.”

“If it’s a demon,” Evan said, “wouldn’t it be a form we’re  _ uncomfortable _ with?”

Brandon was lighting the candles. “Warlock, you stand to the north. You’re our psychic powerhouse.”

“I’m not, though,” Warlock remarked, and took himself and his beer to the cardinal point Brandon had indicated.

Brandon frowned. “Or is that way north? Shit, does anyone have a compass?” No-one did. “Okay, well, that’s probably north. Warlock, stand there. Matt, stand to the east. Evan, take the south, and I’ll—shit, I’ve got to turn the lights out. Hang on a sec—okay. I’ve got the west. West does the invocation, so—” He picked up the book. “Golden-eyed tempter, serpent of wisdom, hear our summons! Across the void, across the world we call to thee! Come forth!”

All the candles blew out at once. Matt let out a high-pitched sound he probably wouldn’t admit to later.

“It’s okay,” Warlock said, and he was delighted at how unafraid his voice came out. “Demon summoning is bullshit, really. That was a neat trick, Brandon, how did—”

He was interrupted by an icy voice, adult, male, with an English accent.  _ “You interrupted my dinner date.” _

This time, everyone screamed.

§ 

It was a very confused moment before anyone thought to turn on the lights. Matt had gone from screaming to crying, Evan was swearing, Brandon was still shrieking loudly, and Warlock had dropped his beer and was wrestling with the highly unnerving feeling that  _ he knew that voice— _ but he couldn’t assign it a name, a face, a background, or a likely setting. For a moment, he wrestled with memories, songs that said that he was born to do great and terrible things, ash and burning, swords and blood.

Then he thought,  _ this room has a light switch _ and bolted for the light switch.

Illumination. Warlock turned back towards the room.

Matt was pressed back against the wall, babbling something about Jesus and needing forgiveness, and Warlock felt instantly sorry for his part in scaring him. The point had been to look cool, not terrify Matt; the sheer idea of putting Matt in distress made Warlock uncomfortable. Brandon and Evan were still on the other side of the circle, not in a much better state.

There was a man standing inside the circle.

Warlock’s first impression was that the man was managing the dark clothing thing better than Warlock did. Perhaps Warlock should forget the necklace with the bone beads on it and just invest in a pair of . . .

. . . dark glasses . . .

. . . very familiar reddish hair, very familiar  _ face . . . _

Warlock stared.

“Well, fuck,” he said aloud, finally, feeling as though his head was going to float off his shoulders. “Life is weird enough, this might as well happen. Hello, Nanny.”

§ 

For a moment, he was convinced that the man was going to lower the glasses to stare at him incredulously. Which would have been even weirder than the rest of it, because Warlock had never seen his nanny’s eyes.

Not once.

It was funny how things that seemed perfectly normal in her—his?—presence became utterly surreal if you walked away and thought about it for a bit.

How the hell could Nanny just be a man all of a sudden? Warlock had some minimal information on people who got surgery to change or something like that, but he’d never expected to meet one. He knew what his father would say about it, and none of it was complimentary, but none of that could apply to Nanny, because  _ Nanny. _ In a contest between what his father thought and what Nanny thought, Nanny would always win.

So, okay. Nanny was a man now. That was a thing that was happening.

“Ngah. Buh. Wha. Warlock,” Nanny said.

“Yeah.”

_ “Warlock.” _

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“What. The heaven.”

“Well, we were trying this demon summoning ritual that Brandon found in a book about medieval magic, and I guess we got you instead. Are you okay?”

“Warlock is your  _ name, _ not an instruction!”

"That's not what you seemed to think when I was little," Warlock felt compelled to point out.

He had never seen Nanny look embarrassed before. "Mistakes occurred," Nanny muttered. "Look, as far as I know, you have absolutely no connection to the supernatural, and you should try to keep it that way.”

Matt was still pressed against the wall, but he had stopped crying, and Brandon and Evan had stopped yelling too. Brandon straightened up. “Are you,” he managed, “are you the Serpent of Wisdom, He Who Crawls—”

“You can leave the crawling out of it, thanks,” Nanny said sharply, turning. “The name’s  _ Crowley. _ With an o.”

Warlock felt he should intervene before there were any more misunderstandings. “Nanny,” he said, “you should tell them you’re not a demon.”

He got a very dry look, complete with a head-tilt as if Nanny were measuring his intelligence and not finding any.

“What are you looking at me like that for?”

A moment more of the look, and then Nanny turned back to Brandon. “Why were you trying to summon me?”

“I just—I honestly—I just wanted to know if it would work,” Brandon admitted. His voice got a little stronger. “But I expected, I don’t know, horns, or a tail, or—something a little cooler.”

For a bare instant, Nanny’s shape was replaced by—something. It came and went too fast for Warlock to make out many details, but it was long, dark-scaled, and had more fangs than should reasonably exist—less what a snake actually  _ looks _ like, and more of what happens in a ophidiophobe’s brain when they see one.

Brandon might have been an ophidiophobe. He toppled soundlessly, passed out.

Nanny, back in his usual shape or at least his new, male-looking shape, grinned. “It’s even more fun when they ask for it. What about you?” That was aimed at Evan.

Evan had turned white. “No, I—I—I—bye!” He edged around the circle as he spoke, then bolted for the door.

It slammed closed behind him.

“But you’re not a demon,” Warlock said in a very small voice.

“You were trying to summon a demon. You did the ritual for a demon. What did you expect, a small rutabaga?”

“But you were my nanny! When I was little, there were two things I knew, absolutely, and those were that you  _ could _ do anything you wanted and that you never  _ would _ do anything that would hurt me! You just—you just can’t be—”

To his deep embarrassment, Warlock’s eyes were stinging.

Nanny sighed, stepped forward, and bumped into the edge of the circle. It didn’t make a sound, but it  _ looked _ exactly like someone walking into a glass door. He looked irritated and then put his arm on it and leaned against it. “Warlock—” He sighed again. “Get me one of those beers you aren’t supposed to be drinking.”

Warlock was halfway to the bag in the corner when Matt grabbed his arm. “Don’t! He’s a demon, he’ll kill us all if you cross the line, and you can’t give him a beer without crossing the line!”

“What would I get out of killing you?” Nanny inquired.

“It’s what demons do,” Matt said, white-lipped. “I watch movies, okay? Warlock, you have to send him back. Send him back to Hell, or wherever he came from. He’ll trick us, he’ll trick us or do something, and then he’ll get out and it’ll all be over—”

_ “He’s not a demon!” _ Warlock yelled.

“Yes,” Nanny said, with something approaching gentleness, “I am.”

Warlock stared at him, betrayed,

“Don’t expect me to say I’m sorry. I don’t—I do that very, very rarely. And never for what I am.”

"You weren't there when I was a kid because you wanted to be," Warlock said, realizing it as he spoke. "You were there because someone wanted me to turn out evil. I was supposed to grow up to be president or something, and do something really awful. Well, the joke’s on you,” his voice was rising, “I don’t even  _ want _ to be a politician, no matter what Dad thinks. I’m going to be a musician and I don’t care what you or anyone else has to say about it!”

“Good!” Nanny grinned, then amended, “Well, not  _ good _ good. You know what I mean. Not honoring thy father and mother, personal favorite.”

Warlock didn’t care about that. “I thought you cared about me! But you were just there to make me into whoever you wanted! Just like every other person in my life!” He was yelling now. “My father practically had the ‘Senator Dowling’ plaques made up before I was born! I’ve lived with this  _ bullshit _ all my life! I thought you were different!”

_ “Warlock.” _

Warlock shut his mouth, hard.

“The book,” Nanny said. “The one that boy got the summoning circle out of. Look at it.”

Still steaming, Warlock went to Brandon’s side of the summoning circle and picked up the book. It was, rather to his surprise, in English, albeit very old and misspelled English. He scanned down the page that Brandon had been on.  _ He who summoneth the Serpent, _ the text said, after detailing the ritual,  _ may crave a Boone of him, but be wary for thy immortal Soul and also for the Wordes of the Pact. Within the Sirkle the Serpent is constrained to the Truth, yet he may still use Wordes to deceive you . . . _

“What does that mean?” Warlock said.

“Which bit?”

“The bit where it says you have to tell the truth, but you can still lie to me. How does that work?”

“Exact words,” Nanny said. “For example, if someone asked me to make them the ruler of anything they survey, the easiest way would be to make them blind. But it also means anything I say in here,” he thumped the circle with his fist, which still didn’t make a noise, “is true. You just have to be careful how you interpret it. So here’s a completely true sentence.” He grimaced, as if the words didn’t come easily. “I care about you. If I didn’t care about you, completely outside the assignment, I wouldn’t have helped send you birthday presents after it was over. Your choice whether that makes you feel better.”

Warlock blinked. “Those were from you?”

“Not all of them. I sent you some plants and the astronomy book. The adventure books—”

The door exploded.

§ 

Warlock twisted as splinters rained around him, and the light hit him full in the face. It came from something roughly human-shaped standing in the doorway, but there was no way to make out any details. The light was impossibly brilliant, white, and it went to the back of his eyeballs like a knife. He couldn’t see. He squeezed his eyes shut instinctively and it did  _ nothing. _ The light seemed just as brilliant through closed lids. He cried out and clapped his hands to his face. He could hear Matt whimpering beside him, and then a  _ crack _ as if the floor had just been split. And then a heavy  _ thud, _ exactly like a long body that had been leaning suavely against a magic circle and, upon the magic circle’s abrupt removal, had fallen very un-suavely to the floor.

“Angel, for hell’s sake!” Nanny said, from a bit below knee height.

The light dimmed to merely intolerable. “Are you all right? Did they do anything to you? Did they hurt you? Did they make you do anything?”

Warlock knew  _ that _ voice too. It had a different accent when he was growing up, but so had Nanny. “Brother Francis?” he choked out.

There was a pause, and then the light turned off, all at once.  _ “Warlock?” _

“I—ugh. I can’t see a thing.” Light had given way to multicolored spots. “Am I going to be blind? I don’t want to be blind. Nanny—”

“It’ll wear off,” Nanny said. “Sit tight.”

“You do realize,” Brother Francis said, “that Warlock is just your  _ name, _ not some sort of, of directive?”

“I don’t think he even powered the spell,” Nanny said. “I think the other one did it. The frightened one. It didn’t hurt that Warlock had an affinity, but making the spell work takes power plus  _ belief, _ and he believes.”

“I didn’t,” Matt quavered, “I didn’t want this, I didn’t want any of this, I just want to go  _ home. _ What’re you going to do to me?”

“Matt,” Warlock said, groping to find his hand and bumping into his arm instead, “it’s going to be okay.”

“It isn’t, he’s a demon, and now there’s  _ another . . .” _

“Yeah. I know him, too. It’s complicated. I mean, I have a suspicion that it really  _ is _ all complicated and political and occult and everything, but the important thing is,  _ if they really care about me, _ they’re not going to do anything to hurt you.”

There was a pause. “Of course we care about you,” Brother Francis said.

“Even though you were—sent?”

“Crowley was sent,” Brother Francis said. “I was more invited along. How much do you, er . . .”

Warlock blinked at the blurry shape of Brother Francis. “Just that—Crowley—is a demon and was supposed to make me evil, and I’m thinking you were supposed to undo it, but you’re not enemies or anything, because you didn’t act like enemies when I caught you together, like when you were hiding behind the rose bush arguing about the sanctity of aphids and whether some turtle guy was a wanker.”

“Turtle . . . ?” Brother Francis sounded utterly bewildered. Warlock’s vision had cleared enough to see that he was dressed in a formal, old-fashioned sort of way and had entirely lost the sticky-out teeth.

“Tertullian,” Nanny said, “and he was. Aziraphale,” he gestured to the general vicinity of Brother Francis, and Warlock realized his vision was still recovering, “came because I asked him to, because neither of us were keen on what we thought the powers that be had planned for you. We had to keep up appearances, but what we really  _ wanted, _ all along, was for you to get to be a normal boy. And we’d much rather you didn’t ruin it all by trying  _ demon-summoning _ in some—where are we, angel?”

“A private school not far from Boston. I think. I, er, didn’t get a very good look around—”

Despite the sunglasses, there was no mistaking the glare. It wasn’t very well-aimed, but it wasn’t difficult to tell who it was meant for. “You got here through electricity.”

“Television satellite,” Brother Francis said primly. “Radio waves. It’s safer.”

“It’s still not  _ safe! _ What if you’d got yourself recorded? I don’t object to the rescue—big fan of rescues, me—but how about a  _ nice, cautious _ rescue?”

“I’m sorry,” Brother Francis said, and he sounded like he meant it—much more so than any other man of Warlock’s acquaintance. “I really am, but, Crowley, the  _ best _ scenario I could think of was some awful cult! I thought they would be ripping your feathers out for sorcerous materials every second I delayed! I couldn’t just  _ wait _ for, for a jet to get me here—”

“Relax. Angel. Really. I know how to deal with sorcerers and cults. You promise them the moon, you deliver a naked arse. Easy.”

“Yes, well, I still maintain that puns are one of yours. Crowley, I intend to protect you. We’re on our side, we’re together, that means we have each other’s backs. I couldn’t let you . . .”

_ Angel. _ Brother Francis was an angel.

And Nanny was a demon, and they got along like old friends, and what did  _ that _ say about the structure of the cosmos? But most of all, what was hitting Warlock was how very right it was, having them here, mildly bickering. It was like coming home.

All of which would be ruined if the Resident Advisor came up and found them here. Two grown men in a private dorm suite? Not good.

“We have to get you guys out of here,” Warlock decided. “The R.A. could be up here any moment. You were pretty loud when you—” He looked around the room. “Blew the door to smithereens and ripped up the  _ floor _ just to break the summoning circle. Jesus. Sorry, Nanny.”

“I’m not allergic to the name,” Nanny said. “I met the man, after all. Come on, Warlock.” Brother Francis offered Nanny an elbow, and Nanny took it with the air of someone who was almost successfully pretending that his vision had returned all the way.

The light had affected him  _ worse. _ Maybe it was a demon thing, maybe his eyes were more sensitive? Or maybe the light was a particular  _ kind _ of light that affected Nanny worse?

Affected Nanny worse, and Brother Francis had done it anyway.

That was . . . supremely out of character for Brother Francis. Evidently not for Aziraphale.

Warlock followed them. Aziraphale turned and made a vague motion back at the room, and the floor knit back together, followed by the door—which was now brown with panelling rather than white with an eraser board on it. Warlock stared, and then spun as the door to the stairwell opened.

It was, predictably, the Resident Advisor. Warlock froze. “Um. I can explain?” he hoped wildly.

“Don’t,” said Nanny. “Just walk on past.”

In fact, the R.A. absentmindedly sidestepped all of them in order to stop at the new door. Which he stared at. “The hell?”

Aziraphale turned around. “Oh, dear.”

“Open up!” The R.A. accompanied this order with a sharp knock. “I want to know who put a  _ whole new door _ on this room, and what the f—what  _ on earth _ happened to the old one! I know you’re in there, Brandon—”

“Maybe I should—” Aziraphale said.

“If you change the door while he’s looking at it, he’ll know something’s up, just come  _ on, _ angel!”

The two of them went down the stairs, Warlock trailing behind. Warlock knew what was coming, and he had to think what to do next.

Sure enough, as soon as they were outside, Aziraphale turned to Warlock and said, “Warlock, it’s been simply smashing, seeing you again—”

“Can I write to you guys sometime?” Warlock interrupted. “Or call you? I mean, do you live in another dimension or something, or can someone just—text, or call, or—”

“We live on Earth,” Aziraphale assured him. “Of course you can write, if you want to. What do you want to talk about?”

What Warlock wanted to say was,  _ I deliberately,  _ aggressively _ don’t care if my dad is proud of me, but I want someone to be. I want to talk to you about working with the theater club, and having a part in their production of  _ Little Shop of Horrors, _ and I want you to say, “Good job, Warlock, well done,” just as if I’d done something stupid like baseball. I want to have someone to talk to when I feel like I’ll never be any good at music, and I want that to be someone who cares about music and doesn’t think it’s a waste of my time anyway. I want to have someone to talk to about the fact that I don’t really care about girls yet, I mean, I care about them as people, but that’s not the way the boys around me care about them, and I’m worried I’ll always be weird. I want to ask you if I’m weird. I want to ask you if it’s okay that I’m weird. I want to talk about what I feel about Matt, and I don’t even know what I feel about Matt. I want you to tell me it’s okay. _

Since he was fifteen, he said, “I dunno. Stuff.”

There was a short silence.

Then Nanny said, “We never did finish dinner. Are you hungry, Warlock?”

“Yeah,” Warlock said. He would have said yes even if he had just eaten a twelve-course meal, but he discovered he actually was.

“Come on, then. If we’re near Boston, I’m sure we can find something open this late.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] What's In A Name?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23635234) by [Djapchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Djapchan/pseuds/Djapchan)


End file.
